Killer's Instinct - Protocol: Unstrung Puppet
by RetardedFool
Summary: Freedom: It is just a word. Be it a Gift, or a Curse. Perspective about it, is all that matters. [Oneshot]


**I've got no strings, To hold me down**

A shadowed figure crept through the surface of the roof which belonged to a large building. It was a moonless night, which meant almost perfect stealth in the darkness.

The figure came to a halt when it reached the edge of the roof, looking over to see several armed personnels patrolling the vicinities. The pair of lime green eyes blinked slightly before retreating back from the edge of the roof.

 _[Agent. Sit-rep.]_

A slender hand reach to the the side of the head as a female voice shot through the figure's head. "It is as the scouts reported." A female voice replied softly, almost robotic. "Heat signals shows eighty-four guard personnels within the perimeters."

 _[Understood, agent. Proceed with the mission.]_

"Affirmative. Proceeding to objective." The figure lowered her hand and crept towards the edge again. She coiled her legs into a crouch, just as a different voice spoke up from the side of her head again.

 _[Remember, Penny.]_ The deep voice of a male said. _[Retrieve the data, and destroy the facility. Leave no witness.]_

"Yes sir." The female replied as she kicked off the concrete of the roof, leaping high into the air.

* * *

 **To make me fret, Or make me frown**

"'Sup..." A pair of armed individuals greeted as they passed by the other guards. "Anything out there?"

"Clear." One of the other guards returned the greeting. "How about your side?"

"Nothing out of ordinary."

"Hmm." The seemingly youngest of the group voiced out his concern. "To think we'd need so many people to patrol and guard here."

"Higher-ups' decision. Wouldn't question it if I were you, kid." His older partner chastised. "Come on, let us finish our rounds."

"Yes sir!" The cheeky young guard gave a mock salute and fell into step with his superior.

"Say, kid." The patrol did not took long until the older guard felt like striking up a conversation. "You seems new here, what makes you want to pursue an occupation in security?"

No respond.

"Kid?" The older guard turned around to see a peculiar sight. The younger guard was facing him, or at least his body was. The head was turned a full one-eighty, making it face the direction that was impossible with natural human anatomy.

The body swayed a little before toppling forward onto its knees and to the ground, the face of the previously alive young guard contorted in shock and death.

"Shit!" Initial shock was quickly replaced with wary as the guard reached for his communication device. "64-Golf to 64! We have a situation!" He was promptly cut off as sharp pain lanced through his torso.

"Position compromised." A young female voice was heard as the air before the stunned guard contorted and fizzled, slowly revealing a small figure holding a blade that was buried halfway into his own solar plexus. "Commencing termination."

The next instance had dozens more blade emerging from the female's back and lodging themselves deep into the guardsman's body. The man choked and cough in his own blood before succumbing to the cold embrace of death.

 _[64 to 64-Golf! What is you situation? Over.]_

The young woman then slowly reached over and plucked the communication device from the recently live-being-turned-corpse. A soft click was heard as she pressed the communicate button and promptly replied, in the dead guard's voice.

"64-Golf to 64. Cancel last. It is a false alarm. Over."

 _[64 to 64-Golf. You sure? Over.]_

"64-Golf to 64. Positive. Sorry about that, lack of sleep is giving me paranoia. Over."

 _[64 to 64-Golf. I feel ya. Get some rest after your shift, a'right man? Over.]_

"64-Golf, copy that. Thanks, pal. Over, out." The woman returned the device to its original place, at the same time the blades retracted after lowering the corpse to the ground.

The blades fully folded and returned to the compartment in her back, the woman then fizzled before fading into thin air, soft footsteps disappearing into the dark.

* * *

 **I had...strings...**

Having slipped pass several security measures within the building, Penny stood within a dark cold room. Before herself was the behemoth-sized processor mainframe at least twice her height.

The young woman wasted no time searching for a connection port. Pulling a cable that was link to her own neck, Penny connected to the port. Firewalls and cyber defenses prove nothing more than an annoyance as the woman extracted data from the mainframe with impossible processing speed.

The time took to complete the data extraction lasted no more than five minutes. Penny unplugged the cable and retracted the wire back into her neck.

With the extraction done, Penny was about to reach the exit when her internal hostility indicator went off. Jumping to the right, the woman was barely able to dodge the door that was blasted off its hinges, despite being an extremely thick and dust-infused.

Penny immediately initiated her combat sequence, folded blades emerging from her back, her stance ready to pounce.

"Tsk, to think I wasted money hiring those useless bunch. I even have to punish them for their misconduct" A female voice could be heard through the settling smoke from the explosion. Soft click of footsteps, followed by cold white mist entering, revealed a feminine figure dressed in pristine white pant suit stepping through the ruined doorway. "But no matter, I believe I've gotten something back in return."

Something clicked within Penny. "Vocal recognition: Confirm." Her mechanical eyes whirring as they focused onto the newcomer. "Semblance recognition: Confirm. Facial recognition: Confirm."

"Oh my, if it isn't Penny." One could actually feel a smirk from the words. "It's been long."

"Hostile confirmed: Schnee, Weiss." The threat evaluator within Penny kept the woman from initiation an upfront confrontation.

"If you're here, it'd only mean that Winter and Ironwood are involved." Weiss smiled as she thumb-wiped a small splatter of crimson liquid from her cheek. "Why not have a chat with me, dear sister."

There was a soft click from Penny, followed by a matured female replying to Weiss. _[You are no sister of mine.]_

"Come now, don't be so quick to disown me again, like father." Weiss chuckled softly as she took a step forward, immediately replied with Penny taking a step back. "After all, we belong to the same blood."

 _[I don't have a monster for a sister.]_

The feature on Weiss' face darkened slightly as she heard the words, her calm smile morphing into a sneer as she took to approach Penny. "My, what a hurtful thing to say, Winter. To your beloved sister no less."

 _[Penny! You have to evacuate now!]_ A male tensed voice ordered. _[You have the data, and we can't have it taken by Weiss!]_

"Affirmative." Penny retracted her blades and took off sprinting, away from the other woman.

"Oh no you don't." Weiss waved her left hand, followed by Penny tripping over something and slammed onto the floor.

The tripped woman tried to recover from the fall, only to find that the lower half of her body was encased in ice, white mist trailing from the ice back to Weiss' hand. Penny tried to move again, resulting in the freezing ice slowly climbing her torso.

"Now now, don't be hasty." Weiss approached the trapped woman in a slow, calculated manner. "Tell me, Penny. Shall I cut your strings for you?"

"Initiating defense proto-!" Penny was cut off when a sharp object stabbed into the base of her alloy reinforced skull. "Sys...system...sys...tem...hijack..ed..."

 _[Penn-...do yo-...me...! Pen-!...]_ Everything turned into white noise as a foreign program seemed to slowly take over her processing unit. Soon, the white noise faded into black as Penny's internal system took a complete shutdown.

* * *

 **But now I'm free...**

 _"Penny? Penny."_ A voice slowly roused her from slumber. _"Penny, wake up."_ The woman gave a soft yawn as she stretched the sleep from her body.

"Good morning, Miss Schnee." Penny opened her eyes to see Weiss smiling down to herself. She then registered the position they were in, herself lying down and using Weiss' laps as pillow. "Oh my! I'm terribly sorry, Miss Schnee!" She immediately sat up from her position.

"I don't mind." Weiss chuckled good-naturally as she gave a light pat on Penny's head. "I do get to see a cute sleeping face after all."

"M-M-Miss Schnee!" Penny waved her hands in fluster to hide her embarrassment. "Please!"

"I'm kidding." Weiss chuckled even more. "You're so fun to tease."

"Uuu..." The other woman pouted at the tease. "Miss Schnee you're being mean."

"As an apology..." Weiss suddenly reached over and gave the other woman a light hug.

"Miss Schnee?" Penny was confused with the strange behaviour exhibited by Weiss.

"Let's go, Penny." Weiss released the hug and stood upright. "Time to go home." She held out a hand to Penny. "It's getting late."

"Understood, Miss Schnee." Penny clasped the hand and pulled herself to stand. "Let's go home."

The two strolled through the hallway, ignoring the bloodied frozen corpses scattered along the floor. The walk did not take long before the duo reached the exit of the building. Penny turned back, glancing at the destroyed interior laced with melting ice and shredded body parts.

"What's wrong, Penny?" Weiss noticed the gaze.

"It's nothing." Penny turned back to Weiss and shook her head with a smile. "Because..." Her mechanical green eyes flashed cyan for an instance. **"There are no strings on me."**

* * *

 **A/N**

Hey everyone, it's Retardedfool here. First thing first, I have to thank those who have read, favourite, and even followed this little series, Killer's Instinct, that I thought out of in a whim. For the past two years I have had ideas to carry on the series of oneshots, but somehow I've lost the drive to write on.

Therefore, as an apology and gratitude, I gave an action of writing this oneshot to those who are still following my stories.

Also, shoutout to IShipYouNot. A couple weeks ago this author PMed me, telling me that my oneshots gave inspiration to his/her chapters, Reluctant Heroes. Go read it. You won't be disappointed.

I'm glad, happy, and even proud that my passion in story writing is able to inspire others.

Thank you, everyone who read and reviewed my stories, for giving me something to push forward with my own writing. And no, I won't be stopping anytime soon. Just that, I may not be able to do a frequent update.

Well, to end this long-winded monologue, I do hope this oneshot is not a deterioration from the previous ones. Reviews are much appreciated.


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